A portrait of the Queen as a young woman

By N.D.

This review contains plot details of the first season of “The Crown”

THERE is a scene in “The Crown” where Princess Elizabeth, still a girl, visits Eton College. The future Queen has a private lesson with the vice-provost, but as she enters the school’s courtyard the bell rings and dozens of boys stream forth, striding purposefully across her path. The shot cuts to a bird’s-eye view of Elizabeth as she hesitates, spinning around: a small girl in a bright blue dress adrift in a sea of top hats.

Queen Elizabeth II was just 25 when her father, George VI, died in 1952. Her ascension to the throne and the early years of her reign is the subject of the first series of “The Crown”, an ambitious and expensive production released on Netflix on November 4th. The first episodes trace post-war British history from Winston Churchill’s re-election and the Great Smog of 1952 to the beginning of Anthony Eden’s tenure and the Suez Canal crisis.

But “The Crown” is not merely a work of social and political history. The broader focus is on the personal struggles of the royal family, not least those of Elizabeth (Claire Foy) as she feels her way into queenship. Nobody expected her to succeed to the throne so young; beyond a few hurried lessons from her father before he died, Elizabeth is ill prepared for the practicalities of the task ahead. In her first audience with Churchill (John Lithgow), the new Queen offers him a seat and some tea. “Oh dear, did no one explain?” Churchill says. The sovereign never offers a prime minister refreshment, he explains, nor a chair. To waste time on such niceties is a “grievous sin”.

Even as Elizabeth settles in to her duties, she struggles to reconcile the conflict between her public and private selves. To the world she is Queen Elizabeth II. At home she is Lilibet, a wife, mother and sister—even if that home is Buckingham Palace. This forms the heart of the dramatic tension, particularly Elizabeth’s skirmishes with Philip Mountbatten (Matt Smith), the proud naval officer emasculated by living in his wife’s shadow. Elizabeth’s burgeoning confidence as Queen is mirrored in her assertiveness at home. When Philip protests about kneeling to Elizabeth at her coronation—“it will feel like a eunuch, an amoeba, is kneeling before his wife”—she retorts saying she is his wife and his Queen and that a strong man would be able to kneel before both.

As the success of “Downton Abbey” made clear (some 6.6m viewers watched the final episode live on Christmas day 2015), there is an appetite for drama about the seemingly glamorous world of the British aristocracy. The Windsors are one of the most scrutinised families in the world, and also one of the most guarded. “The Crown” offers a voyeuristic glimpse into their imagined inner world and Netflix has spared no expense in creating an authentic milieu. As well as the extravagant costumes designed by Michele Clapton, there is a rampaging elephant on a Commonwealth tour and a full-size replica of Buckingham Palace. At a reported cost of more than $100m (£81m) for the first series, “The Crown” is the most expensive television show ever made. Five more series are planned, each spanning a decade of the Queen’s reign.

Yet as viewers of “Downton Abbey” know, it is not the glitz and ceremony—nor the history, however exquisitely rendered—that keeps audiences piqued. It is the characters and the web of love, deceit and betrayal that they spin for themselves. “The Crown” benefits from giving its actors space to perform and from excellent casting, particularly Mr Lithgow’s Churchill, who movingly portrays the mighty politician railing against his failing health. Elizabeth defies her family’s objections to marry Philip and as the series progresses their marriage develops too, moving from lust and delight to bickering, jealousy and suspicion. Elizabeth agonises over her sister’s wish to marry the divorced Peter Townsend. Ms Foy convincingly portrays a woman who must remain impartial, masking her emotions behind a stiff upper lip.

Perhaps due to the focus on the character’s interior lives, “The Crown” at times tips into melodrama. The plot that sees the return of Elizabeth’s uncle, the Duke of Windsor (formerly King Edward VIII), is overdone; there are sepia-toned flashbacks of him waltzing with Wallis Simpson and we are reminded ad nauseam that he abdicated the throne for love, for “something greater still”.

What ultimately transfixes is the subtle transformation of Elizabeth Windsor into Elizabeth Regina, a symbol of something that is more than mortal (or, as the Duke of Windsor puts it, “a strange hybrid creature, like a sphinx”). During her lessons at Eton, Elizabeth learns that there are two elements of the constitution, according to Walter Bagehot: the efficient and the dignified. The efficient has the power to make and execute policy and is answerable to the electorate. The monarch, the dignified, gives significance and legitimacy to the efficient and is answerable to God. In 2016 it is fair to question the value of the monarchy. But in post-Brexit Britain, as political parties squabble and splinter, economic uncertainty looms and social divisions run deep, there is appeal in this portrait of a leader who is dignified and steadfast, a leader who puts the needs of her country above all else.

“The Crown” is available in all Netflix territories now